The words outside groups backing Nithya Raman and Karen Bass are paying for in the LA mayoral runoff

Outside groups have spent about $24.5 million on the Los Angeles mayoral runoff since the June primary. I scraped the text off every ad they’ve filed with the city Ethics Commission and added up, word by word, how much each side spent on ads that use it. Ads with readable text account for $21.4 million of that spending.

Of the money supporting Nithya Raman or opposing Mayor Karen Bass, more than three-quarters paid for ads that say “homelessness.” “Rent” is in 56% of it, and “fire,” “fires” or the Spanish “incendios” is in 41%. Most of that money comes from Estamos con Nithya, a committee sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters. One of its ads opens with “Fire after fire, $3 billion wasted, a homelessness crisis out of control” and says Los Angeles “has been burned by Karen Bass.” Others pitch “new leadership,” and “leader” or “leadership” is in 44% of the pro-Raman money. About a third of it paid for ads saying Raman cut homelessness in her council district by half.

The biggest spender against Raman is a committee sponsored by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for rank-and-file LAPD officers. More than half of the money supporting Bass or opposing Raman paid for ads that say “safer.” “School” is in half of it, “kids” and “500 feet” in 44% and “police” in a third, and the union committee paid for most of those ads. Several of those replay Raman saying at a January 2024 candidate forum that she didn’t think “a kid’s gonna be safer because a tent is 500 feet away from a school.” Others say the Democratic Socialists of America, who endorsed Raman, want to “expropriate” homes and businesses, and “socialists” is in 17% of the pro-Bass money. Groups supporting Bass use “safer” too, in slogans like “Building a stronger, safer LA.”

Two lists of ten words with the share of each side's outside money that paid for ads that say them. Pro-Raman: homelessness 78%, rent 56%, leader or leadership 44%, crisis 43%, fire 41%, wasted 40%, $3 billion 36%, by half 32%, failed or failures 25% and burned 22%. Pro-Bass: safer 54%, school 50%, 500 feet 44%, kids 44%, tents 38%, police 33%, scary 30%, officers 28%, small businesses 23% and socialists 17%. Grey bars show the same word's share on the other side, which is 1% or less for 13 of the 20 words. — Each bar is the share of a side’s outside money that paid for ads using the word.

Each bar is the share of a side’s outside money that paid for ads using the word.

On the pro-Bass side, “tents” is in 38% of the money and “homelessness” in only 15%. None of the readable pro-Raman ads say “tents,” “police” or “school,” and “burned,” “$3 billion” and “by half” don’t appear in any of the readable pro-Bass ads.

Donald Trump’s name is in 14% of the pro-Raman money and 4% of the pro-Bass money. Bass’s own campaign, whose filings don’t list what each piece cost, names him in at least 34 of the 150 runoff pieces it has filed with the city.